White Mice
by Veronica Catherine Richards
Summary: An Animorphs/H2G2 crossover.


DAVID   
  


I had been on Rat Island for about a month, and gotten used to it. The rats were more intelligent than you'd think. They had a sort of social structure, and names and everything. 

I had made a few friends. They were fairly young, and were apparently sort of brothers and sisters. There was Pinky, a girl, Freud, a boy, and Jilly-Goo, who was female and the youngest. 

We were lounging around on some rocks one day. Freud was scratching Pinky's back, and Jilly-Goo was digging for worms. 

"You know," Pinky said lazily, "it's only four days till that thing Benjy and Frankie have been telling us about happens." Benjy and Frankie were sort of the rulers of Rat Island. 

"What have they been telling you about?" I asked. 

Freud shrugged. "Oh, they say that we're going to reclaim our rightful heritage. I wouldn't know anything about that." 

Pinky snorted. "Right. The big kaboom." 

Jilly-Goo came over with a worm. "What big kaboom?" 

"The Earth's going to blow up," Freud explained. 

Jilly-Goo dropped her worm and started to cry. "I don't wanna blow up!" 

Pinky skittered over to her and hugged her. "Oh, don't worry, honey. We're not going to be blown up." She glared at Freud. "I told you not to go around trying to scare her!" 

"Wait a minute." I sat up on the rock where I had been sunning myself. "What's all this about the Earth blowing up?" 

Freud twitched his whiskers. "It's an old, old rat myth," he said. "I'll tell you." 

"You always get it wrong," accused Pinky. "_I'll_ tell David." 

Freud shrugged. "Be my guest."   
  


"A long, long time ago," Pinky started, "the white rats were a Great, Great Race. We lived on another planet in those days." 

"We weren't a great race," Freud said. "We were interdimensional pests." 

"Well, we had a Civilization, anyway." Pinky smoothed down her whiskers. "We were Very, Very Smart, and knew a lot about the Universe." 

"They just played a lot of Brockian Ultra Cricket," Freud said. "See, that's this game where you have a bunch of players who hit each other a lot." 

"There was a Great Computer, called Deep Thought. It was the hugest computer that ever was, and it knew everything." Pinky glared smugly at her brother. "You can't say that's not true." 

Freud nodded sagely. "It was pretty huge. You know, even before it was connected, it got as far as _I think, therefore I am_, and got to the existence of rice pudding and income tax before they got it turned off." 

"There were two Great Programmers, named Lunkwill and Fook," Pinky said. "They asked Deep Thought what the Answer to Life, the Universe, and Everything was. But two Great Philosophers, Majikthise and Vroomfondel, demanded that the computer be turned off, for it was an Affront To The Human Mind." 

"No, they just didn't like it," Freud said. "They thought it would put them out of business." 

"And there was a Great War between the Programmers and the Philosophers," Pinky went on, "and it lasted for years and years!" 

Jilly-Goo clutched a clump of dirt. "Who won?" she squeaked. 

Freud rolled his eyes. "There wasn't a great war," he said. "The philosophers got mad at the programmers, and then Deep Thought--" 

"Deep Thought told the Programmers and the Philosophers that the program would take seven and a half million years to run," Pinky interrupted. "And the Programmers and the Philosophers agreed that they would lay aside their differences until that Great Day when the Truth would be revealed!" 

"No," said Freud, "that's not what happened." 

"Who's the one telling this story?" demanded Pinky. "You or me?" 

Freud sighed. "Go ahead, Pinky." 

"Anyway," Pinky continued, "the Great Day came when Deep Thought would reveal the Truth! And the two descendants of Lunkwill and Fook, who were named Loonquawl and Phouchg, asked the Great Computer what the Answer to Life, the Universe, and Everything was!" 

"Forty-two," muttered Freud. 

"And the Answer was FORTY-TWO!" yelled Pinky, ignoring Freud. "But they did not know the Question, which was the problem." 

"Wait a minute," I said. "They knew the answer, but not the question? Don't you have to know the question before you figure out the answer? And was the question a problem or was the fact that they didn't know it a problem? This doesn't make any sense." 

"It doesn't have to make sense, it's a legend," snapped Pinky. "Anyway. So Deep Thought created another computer, a computer to figure out the Question!" 

"And did it?" I asked. 

"Nope," Pinky said. "It's taking ten million years." 

"And the computer," added Freud, "is the Earth." 

Jilly-Goo giggled. "Isn't that funny? The Earth is a computer!" 

I laughed. "Yeah, real funny. Seriously. Where's the computer?" 

"I was being perfectly serious," Freud said. 

My first thought was that I had to tell the Animorphs. 

My second thought was, Screw the Animorphs. 


End file.
